Faculty Supporters

We welcome the involvement and support of all members of the Smith College community. If you are interested in receiving infrequent updates from Divest Smith College about upcoming events and pivotal news, please email divestsmithcollege@gmail.com and we can add you to our email list.

We are also proud to support the faculty petition for fossil fuel divestment, which is copied below. The petition is live and the list of signatures is growing.

Petition to the Trustees of Smith College to Divest from Fossil Fuels

December 2015

We the undersigned faculty members of Smith College call on Smith to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Smith prepares women to be global leaders, and no issue is more demanding of their leadership than global climate change, which is caused by burning fossil fuels. With 2015 on track to be the hottest year ever recorded and hundreds of world leaders convening in Paris this month for the pivotal international COP-21 climate summit, the time to act is now.

Smith’s investments in the coal, oil, and gas industries earn profit from pollution of the atmosphere and the ensuing irrevocable damage to natural ecosystems, food security, public health, and global economic and geopolitical stability. It is unethical for the College to continue profiting from those activities.

Climate change and environmental destruction disproportionately impact already marginalized groups, especially women and people of color. Continued investment in the fossil fuel industry is in direct conflict with Smith’s educational mission: “Smith prepares women to fulfill their responsibilities to the local, national and global communities in which they live and to steward the resources that sustain them.”

Smith consulted its moral compass when deciding to divest from the apartheid regime of South Africa, from the tobacco industry, and from Sudanese oil companies that indirectly financed genocide in Darfur. Smith must now acknowledge its own role in helping finance the disruption of the world’s climate, and again consult its moral compass to chart an investment course more consistent with its values.

Divesting from fossil fuels will allow the College to reinvest significant resources in more promising, profitable, and beneficial enterprises — such as the burgeoning renewable energy sector. The long-term financial needs and fiduciary responsibilities of the College are jeopardized by investment in an industry where assets may soon be frozen. Increasing domestic and international pressure, such as the Copenhagen Accord signed at COP-15 to limit global warming to 2 degrees C, means significant fossil fuel reserves will stay in the ground, which translates to major upheaval for the coal, oil, and gas industries.

By divesting from fossil fuels, Smith will join a global movement of institutions ranging from the University of California to Oxford University to the United Church of Christ to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund – itself born from the oil industry – to the public pension funds of Sweden and Norway. Over 450 institutions worldwide have committed over $2.5 trillion to investments free from fossil fuels. Smith students, faculty, staff, alumnae, and potential donors should rightly ask what role our institution will play in that movement.

We are encouraged that Smith has recently established a Study Group on Climate Change and reconstituted an Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility. These are important steps that demonstrate Smith’s commitment to environmental sustainability and ethical action. Divesting from fossil fuels should be an obvious next step.

In concert with student-led Divest Smith College’s petition, we faculty call respectfully and urgently on Smith College (1) to freeze immediately all new investments in coal, oil and natural gas industries and (2) to commit to divest within five years from direct ownership and from any commingled funds that include fossil-fuel public equities and corporate bonds. We also call on Smith to (3) publish an annual progress report detailing the exposure of the college’s endowment to the fossil fuel industry.

Signed:

James Lowenthal, Professor of Astronomy

Elliot Fratkin, Professor of Anthropology

Leslie King, Professor of Anthropology

Brigitte Buettner, Professor of Art

Virginia Hayssen, Professor of Biology

Daniel Kramer, Associate Professor of Theatre

Michael Thurston, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English

Gary Lehring, Associate Professor of Government

Jeffrey Ahlman, Assistant Professor of History

Martine Gantrel, Professor of French Studies

William Oram, Professor of English Language and Literature

Laura Katz, Professor of Biological Sciences

Caroline Melly, Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Bruce Hawkins, Professor of Physics, Emeritus

Gary Felder, Associate Professor of Physics

David Ball, Professor of French Studies and Comparative Literature, Emeritus